My quick rating – 6.4/10. Going into The Running Man, I’ll admit my bias right up front: I really enjoyed the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger version, and I’m also a fan of Stephen King’s original Bachman novel. That’s a tricky balance for any remake or reimagining to navigate, and while this new take doesn’t always stick the landing, I thought it does enough right to justify its existence.
This reboot centers on working-class Ben Richards (Glen Powell), who struggles under a system that blacklists him from every job for trying to do the right thing and leaves him unable to afford basic medicine for his sick daughter. With no options left, Ben falls for a pitch from The Running Man producer Killian, whom Josh Brolin plays with charming but deadly intensity, and signs on as a contestant in the brutal game show.
The premise leans grim, and the film pushes its message about media manipulation and ideological control without subtlety. At times, the movie hammers the point so hard it resembles an anvil labeled “Lesson in So-Called Progress,” yet the idea of a country feeding on the spectacle of watching someone fall, or die, still packs a potent punch.
One of the film’s biggest strengths is its action. The chases and shootouts are shot clearly, with solid impact and choreography, and you can always tell what’s going on. When bullets are flying, the movie locked my attention, and there are several finely crafted action sequences that genuinely deliver. This isn’t shaky-cam chaos – it’s confident, readable action, which goes a long way in a movie like this.
Powell absolutely carries the film. His characterization of Ben Richards successfully projects a combination of desperate father, stiff-necked moral hero, and slightly deranged everyman who just might have a prayer in a fixed game of death. He possesses the gritty, visceral essence you can support him with, even when the film is hitting a low spot. While Brolin, in a different sort of evil, succeeds with a degree of corporate insanity.
The dystopian world itself is interesting: a media mega-corporation effectively running the country, AI-generated propaganda turning contestants into public enemies, and a society encouraged to hunt them down alongside professional killers. It’s dark, ugly, and depressingly plausible. That’s also where I saw the movie’s biggest issue creep in. This is material that really calls for a heavier, more serious tone. We’re dealing with poverty, desperation, and public executions as entertainment. And yet the film keeps dropping in jokes and light banter. Most of those jokes don’t land, and they undercut the gravity of what’s happening.
You can tell Edgar Wright was trying to walk the line between honoring the Stephen King book and satisfying fans of the original movie, and surprisingly, he mostly pulls that off. Even King himself praised the film, “He felt it captured the angry spirit of the original Bachman novel but updated it for a modern audience, noting the film was faithful enough for fans but fresh enough to keep him engaged.”-Yahoo. That’s probably the best way to sum it up: flawed, uneven, but ambitious.
I won’t spoil anything, but the ending very much lets you have your cake and eat it too. It may not be the definitive Running Man, but it’s a solid, entertaining update that mostly earns its place in the conversation.
